Tommy Chong
Digital Portrait
This digitally painted portrait of Tommy Chong was created to challenge my ability to capture the likeness of a recognizable public figure through digital illustration. I chose Chong as a subject because his recognizable features and expressive personality pushed me beyond my previous illustration experience while providing an opportunity to strengthen my portraiture skills. Working in Adobe Photoshop with a Wacom tablet, I developed an analogous palette of blues, greens, and yellows inspired by the colorful aesthetic often associated with Tommy Chong and cannabis culture. Capturing a convincing likeness required multiple revisions and introduced me to techniques that strengthened my observational drawing skills and approach to portraiture. The final artwork was later adapted into a contemporary streaming-platform graphic to modernize its presentation for my portfolio.
